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Creator of BEING HUMAN & Writer of DOCTOR WHO to Premiere Dystopian Black Comedy at Soho Theatre
By: BWW News Desk Feb. 07, 2017
Written and performed by Whithouse, Executioner Number One is a brilliant and darkly funny one-man show set in contemporary England under Capital Punishment.
After the Guildford and Birmingham bombings of the mid seventies, the public were given a chance to vote on the reintroduction of the death penalty. With passions running high, it was approved by a landslide. Forty years on, the political and social consequences dictate everyday life.
Enter Ian: ordinary bureaucrat, part-time fishmonger, part-time public executioner fuelled by the ambition of becoming the country's most senior hangman. With the death of the current Executioner Number One, his goal is within reach.
But like every Executioner before him, Ian has had to make sacrifices. Even in this despotic England there are those who don't understand his choice of career. He won't be swayed though. He chose this path knowing it would cost him friends and family so that others would be safe. But when it looks as though Ian might be denied the job he has coveted his whole life, he is forced to confront a ghost from his past. A shadow, a scratch in the corner of his eye. A memory that has tormented him and that he dared not face until now. The execution that went wrong.
Toby Whithouse says: "I've always been fascinated and deeply disturbed by the idea of a government killing its own citizens in the name of law and order. Through Ian's self-interesTed Eyes we witness the dehumanising ramifications for society of an increasing shift to the Right. When I completed the first draft in 2015 the concept was a flight of fancy. World events since then have made it seem frighteningly prescient. That said, I've always believed that life doesn't exist within the tramlines of one tone or genre - tragedy and comedy have always lived side by side - and my job as a dramatist is to represent that. My intention with Executioner Number One was to write a jet black comedy, that entertains as much as it provokes."
Toby Whithouse's return to the Soho Theatre with Executioner Number One completes a hat trick of World Premieres at the venue. His first play Jump, Mr Malinoff, Jump won the 1998 Verity Bargate Award and was the opening production at Soho Theatre in 2000. It was shortlisted for the John Whiting and Meyer Whitworth Award, and was subsequently adapted for radio. His second play Blue Eyes and Heels, premiered at Soho Theatre in 2005. Executioner Number One sees Whithouse join forces with former Soho Theatre Associate Director Jonathan Lloyd, Designer Andrew Purcell (Being Human) and Lighting Designer Chahine Yavroyan (Let the Right One In).
David Luff, Soho Theatre Producer, says: "We're delighted to welcome our former Verity Bargate Award winner Toby Whithouse back to Soho Theatre with his timely, blackly funny new play. In an era of rising nationalism, Toby's play gives us a chillingly prescient view of what could be."
About Toby Whithouse
Toby Whithouse trained as an actor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Theatre credits include Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues at Salisbury Playhouse, Broadway Bound at Greenwich, Laughter on the 23rd Floor in the West End, The Devil's Only Sleeping at Birmingham Rep, Inventing a New Colour at the Northcott Exeter, The Television Programme at the Gate, Raising Mrs Rosetti in Holborn, The Family Way and La Mandragola at Bolton Octagon, The Tempest at Nottingham Playhouse.
His first play Jump, Mr Malinoff, Jump won the 1998 Verity Bargate Award and was the opening production at Soho Theatre in 2000. It was shortlisted for the John Whiting and Meyer Whitworth Award, and was subsequently adapted for radio. His second play Blue Eyes and Heels, premiered at Soho Theatre in 2005.
For television he has written on Where The Heart Is, Attachments, No Angels, Hotel Babylon, Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Armstrong and Miller Show, and Other People. He created the series Being Human, which was nominated for a Bafta for Best Drama Series in 2010 and 2011; and won the Broadcast Award for Best New Show in 2010, the TV Choice Award for Best Drama in 2012, and the Writers Guild Award for Best Television Drama in 2009, 2010 and 2012. His new series The Game premiered on BBC2 in 2015.***
About Soho Theatre
Soho Theatre is London's most vibrant venue for new theatre, comedy and cabaret. As entrepreneurial as it is innovative, over the last five years under the joint leadership of Soho's Artistic Director Steve Marmion and Executive Director Mark Godfrey, the charity and social enterprise has almost trebled audiences, opened a new venue and produced more work than ever before. The vision for 2015-2018 is to ambitiously expand beyond Dean Street with an additional larger new venue, a digital and TV presence, and a national and international touring programme. Recent UK national tours have included Spine and Pajama Men.
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